Monday, January 09, 2006
This is the way I pray
Last Thursday, my friend Jon sent me an announcement for a free “urban fusion” belly dance class in East LA on Friday afternoon. My eyes lit up, and I RSVP’d right away. The invite had urged men to attend, and I’ve always thought that my natural style of dancing was somewhat akin to belly dancing; on top of that, Jon and I–along with a host of other close friends–were planning to go to an outdoor psytrance party on Saturday, and I thought it would be fun to get my groove on a little early.
On Saturday morning, I woke up feeling as if I’d played several games of tackle football the day before–without the benefit of either helmet or padding. After about an hour of hobbling around and gingerly testing my small range of motion, I emailed Jon to say I wouldn’t be going on our weekend jaunt, rather heartbroken over it. Then I lay down on the floor and started doing some yoga–simply because it was the only thing I could do that somewhat helped the pain; everything else, whether sitting, standing or lying down, hurt like hell.
I ended up having a very deep discussion with my body over the next two hours or so, during which I fell in and out of trances, digging into the heart of my pain and massaging it back to life on many different levels. When I finished, my back had improved greatly, and I decided to go out for a walk, just to loosen it up some more. I made it all the way to Jon’s (about two miles), where I felt so much better that I changed my mind about bagging the psytrance gathering. By the time I got home to get ready for the rest of the weekend, I was feeling like myself again–or at least a part of myself that I enjoy more than most: the loose and happy, physically-and-emotionally-centered, ready-to-boogie-my-brains-out part.
What’s great, though, is that I don’t really boogie my brains out anymore. Rather, I boogie them in, if that makes sense. Perhaps a more apt way to put it would be that I dance myself into spiritual alignment these days rather than out of my head, like I used to. I dance because it does something for me that nothing else does: It wipes my marked-up mind clean and facilitates a friendly conversation between my spirit and the rest of the universe.
When I emerged from the music’s embrace, a beautiful blond in a teddy bear suit who was lounging on a cushion at the perimeter of the intimate dancing dirt yelled me over (Hey, you!) and told me that she liked to watch me dance; that I “hold that space so well.” I replied, without even thinking about it, “This is the way I pray.” I think I discovered that as I said it to her, and I’m still thinking about it. Of course, instead of thinking about, or even writing about it, I should probably just dance.
I actually couldn’t stop dancing when we got home late Sunday afternoon–I continued in my room with my cat to a mix on HBR1.com that echoed the psycho-funkadelic sounds of the party’s downtempo lounge. Being with my best buddies and the rest of my extended trance party family, and getting so very deeply into the groove for so long, took me all the way from merely better to very, very good indeed. There are mirrored closet doors across the east side of my bedroom, and I intentionally tried to watch myself dance, to see how I danced, what it looked like, because I realized I had no idea. The music has always been as intense for me: it makes me enter a world full of cell division and sprouting vegetation and sacred geometry. But I feel different when I dance now, and it’s happened quite recently: like its some kind of perfect blend of my artistic, scientific and spiritual concerns, on top of the joyous self expression and release that it has always been for me.
It was hard to watch myself because my eyes glaze over when I dance (except when someone calls me out for a moment with a smile). Things outside my personal vortex become hazy and begin to morph. But I caught a few moves–and I think I’m an okay dancer; I certainly have my own style–and I wondered, where did I get this from? I tried to imagine how I’d developed this particular style of mine, which I’m going to call “psychedelic hula,” and I realized that it had been such an organic process that I couldn’t separate it from myself at all. My dancing is me and I am my dancing as much as my verbal language is, and probably more so. I wish I could do it all the time. Or at least most of the time. Though I think I could do it all the time because it actually gives me energy–not that it doesn’t tire me out physically, because I can feel it in my muscles, but it leaves me refreshed and rejuvenated.
I also go into a serious, meditative trance when I dance, the way Sufi dancers do, I imagine, though I’ve never learned any technique for doing this. It’s a natural occurrence. I laughed when I caught myself in the mirror–I was so serious! Though it feels like belly dancing to me, it looks like like Tai Chi on fast forward with a healthy dose of flamenco and a hint of Bollywood. Now, I have studied a little Tai Chi (as with everything–a little of this, a little of that), but I could no more perform “the form” than I could do a triple Axel. My memory for movement is hideous and I’m a horrible mimic, so it’s hard for me to “follow along,” but I have an innate sense of my body and the way it likes to experience space, which I can express to its full potential in the right atmosphere. The radical party I went to last weekend was certainly that. It was home. And it was church. And I can’t wait to worship again.
But what am I saying? I can pray any time. I’ve got a big room, great music, and a cat who likes to watch. I mean, I couldn’t really LIVE at a psytrance party, now could I? (Or could I?) Instead, my life is its own kind of party, I suppose, and it seems to be getting more festive. I had turned my belly dancing back injury around and grabbed on to the cord of light that is always offered, then slips away, as one sinks into the black pit of pain and depression instead of going down, down, down, and this made me feel that I was actually making some progress. Even a year or two ago, I would have wrapped myself in a cloak of negativity and missed one of the best parties of the decade.
Before I left on Saturday night, Philip told me that he was proud of me for turning it around like I did, that I had a great wealth of self-healing powers–and that these go hand in hand with my great powers of self destruction: What I have to realize and start putting into use is that they are both the same power. I told Jon and Cindy about this while we shared some wine and hors d’oeuvres in our cozy campsite before hitting the dancing dirt, and they both thought it was a cogent and beautiful statement. As usual, Philip hit my nail on its head (he admits he knows me better than he does himself). After that particular night (and morning) of dancing, I am beginning to think that it might need to take a more pivotal role in my ever-spinning matrix of healing and self-transformation. I will surely delve into this and report my findings to you in due time, gentle reader!
Jon and Cindy after dancing--all lit up!
Categories: friends, psychedelic, music, dance, transformation
Saturday morning, feelin' like the flames are real
Unfortunately, I found that belly dancing was far harsher on the hips than I was used to, and by the end of the class, my back was completely out of whack. It was our friendly faerie host’s first attempt at teaching, and he went way too fast for most of us, but I don’t blame him: I’m experienced enough to know to take it easy rather than go for it whole hog without the proper understanding of how, exactly, the body is supposed to be moving. In fact, I did think that very thing when I first noticed he was skipping over lots of things I needed to know in order to do the moves correctly, but I can’t help going at every new challenge as if I’m still 25, or rather ageless, since I don’t think of myself as young so much as indomitable. Ha! After two and a half hours of jarring, random hip gyrations, I was wincing with pain.
On Saturday morning, I woke up feeling as if I’d played several games of tackle football the day before–without the benefit of either helmet or padding. After about an hour of hobbling around and gingerly testing my small range of motion, I emailed Jon to say I wouldn’t be going on our weekend jaunt, rather heartbroken over it. Then I lay down on the floor and started doing some yoga–simply because it was the only thing I could do that somewhat helped the pain; everything else, whether sitting, standing or lying down, hurt like hell.
I ended up having a very deep discussion with my body over the next two hours or so, during which I fell in and out of trances, digging into the heart of my pain and massaging it back to life on many different levels. When I finished, my back had improved greatly, and I decided to go out for a walk, just to loosen it up some more. I made it all the way to Jon’s (about two miles), where I felt so much better that I changed my mind about bagging the psytrance gathering. By the time I got home to get ready for the rest of the weekend, I was feeling like myself again–or at least a part of myself that I enjoy more than most: the loose and happy, physically-and-emotionally-centered, ready-to-boogie-my-brains-out part.
What’s great, though, is that I don’t really boogie my brains out anymore. Rather, I boogie them in, if that makes sense. Perhaps a more apt way to put it would be that I dance myself into spiritual alignment these days rather than out of my head, like I used to. I dance because it does something for me that nothing else does: It wipes my marked-up mind clean and facilitates a friendly conversation between my spirit and the rest of the universe.
Later that night with Cindy--Radiate, girls!!
Out of the large group Jon had commandeered (he’s our family psytrance gathering expert), only he, our friend Cindy and I ended up stepping up to the dancing dirt. Because of our small number and resulting lack of preparation drama, we were able to arrive early and snag a good campsite like the seasoned veteran trancers we're supposed to be, and we joined the small group that was already dancing to summon the party gods. Around midnight, the party hit full swing. I went into a spiraling trance to an ultra-deep, core-stirring set by our friend Jon Mark for about two hours, then swirled and spun right in front of a speaker in the downtempo pavilion for another two, while Cindy and Jon shook their own groove thangs in their own special ways. 
When I emerged from the music’s embrace, a beautiful blond in a teddy bear suit who was lounging on a cushion at the perimeter of the intimate dancing dirt yelled me over (Hey, you!) and told me that she liked to watch me dance; that I “hold that space so well.” I replied, without even thinking about it, “This is the way I pray.” I think I discovered that as I said it to her, and I’m still thinking about it. Of course, instead of thinking about, or even writing about it, I should probably just dance.
I actually couldn’t stop dancing when we got home late Sunday afternoon–I continued in my room with my cat to a mix on HBR1.com that echoed the psycho-funkadelic sounds of the party’s downtempo lounge. Being with my best buddies and the rest of my extended trance party family, and getting so very deeply into the groove for so long, took me all the way from merely better to very, very good indeed. There are mirrored closet doors across the east side of my bedroom, and I intentionally tried to watch myself dance, to see how I danced, what it looked like, because I realized I had no idea. The music has always been as intense for me: it makes me enter a world full of cell division and sprouting vegetation and sacred geometry. But I feel different when I dance now, and it’s happened quite recently: like its some kind of perfect blend of my artistic, scientific and spiritual concerns, on top of the joyous self expression and release that it has always been for me.
It was hard to watch myself because my eyes glaze over when I dance (except when someone calls me out for a moment with a smile). Things outside my personal vortex become hazy and begin to morph. But I caught a few moves–and I think I’m an okay dancer; I certainly have my own style–and I wondered, where did I get this from? I tried to imagine how I’d developed this particular style of mine, which I’m going to call “psychedelic hula,” and I realized that it had been such an organic process that I couldn’t separate it from myself at all. My dancing is me and I am my dancing as much as my verbal language is, and probably more so. I wish I could do it all the time. Or at least most of the time. Though I think I could do it all the time because it actually gives me energy–not that it doesn’t tire me out physically, because I can feel it in my muscles, but it leaves me refreshed and rejuvenated.I also go into a serious, meditative trance when I dance, the way Sufi dancers do, I imagine, though I’ve never learned any technique for doing this. It’s a natural occurrence. I laughed when I caught myself in the mirror–I was so serious! Though it feels like belly dancing to me, it looks like like Tai Chi on fast forward with a healthy dose of flamenco and a hint of Bollywood. Now, I have studied a little Tai Chi (as with everything–a little of this, a little of that), but I could no more perform “the form” than I could do a triple Axel. My memory for movement is hideous and I’m a horrible mimic, so it’s hard for me to “follow along,” but I have an innate sense of my body and the way it likes to experience space, which I can express to its full potential in the right atmosphere. The radical party I went to last weekend was certainly that. It was home. And it was church. And I can’t wait to worship again.
But what am I saying? I can pray any time. I’ve got a big room, great music, and a cat who likes to watch. I mean, I couldn’t really LIVE at a psytrance party, now could I? (Or could I?) Instead, my life is its own kind of party, I suppose, and it seems to be getting more festive. I had turned my belly dancing back injury around and grabbed on to the cord of light that is always offered, then slips away, as one sinks into the black pit of pain and depression instead of going down, down, down, and this made me feel that I was actually making some progress. Even a year or two ago, I would have wrapped myself in a cloak of negativity and missed one of the best parties of the decade.
Before I left on Saturday night, Philip told me that he was proud of me for turning it around like I did, that I had a great wealth of self-healing powers–and that these go hand in hand with my great powers of self destruction: What I have to realize and start putting into use is that they are both the same power. I told Jon and Cindy about this while we shared some wine and hors d’oeuvres in our cozy campsite before hitting the dancing dirt, and they both thought it was a cogent and beautiful statement. As usual, Philip hit my nail on its head (he admits he knows me better than he does himself). After that particular night (and morning) of dancing, I am beginning to think that it might need to take a more pivotal role in my ever-spinning matrix of healing and self-transformation. I will surely delve into this and report my findings to you in due time, gentle reader!
Jon and Cindy after dancing--all lit up!Categories: friends, psychedelic, music, dance, transformation
